By: HISTORY.com Editors

Minnesota enters the Union

Published: February 09, 2010Last Updated: May 28, 2025

Minnesota enters the Union as the 32nd state on May 11, 1858.

Known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” Minnesota is the northern terminus of the Mississippi River’s traffic and the westernmost point of the inland waterway that extends through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean. The Ojibwe and the Dakota were among the Native people who first made this land their home, and white settlement of the area began in 1820 with the establishment of Fort Snelling. In 1849, Minnesota became a U.S. territory.

The building of railroads and canals brought a land boom during the 1850s, and Minnesota’s population swelled from only 6,000 in 1850 to more than 150,000 by 1857. Chiefly a land of small farmers, Minnesota supported the Union in the Civil War and supplied large quantities of wheat to the Northern armies. Originally settled by migrants of British, German and Irish extraction, Minnesota saw a major influx of Scandinavian immigrants during the 19th century. Minnesota’s “Twin Cities”—Minneapolis and St. Paul—grew out of Fort Snelling, the center of early U.S. settlement.

Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on May 11th

1812

British prime minister Spencer Perceval assassinated

In London, Spencer Perceval, prime minister of Britain since 1809, is shot to death by deranged businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons. Bellingham, who was inflamed by his failure to obtain government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia, gave himself up immediately. Spencer Perceval had a profitable law practice […]

1864

Confederate Cavalry General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded

A dismounted Union trooper fatally wounds J.E.B. Stuart, one of the most well-known generals of the South, at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, just six miles north of Richmond, Virginia. The 31-year-old Stuart died the next day. During the 1864 spring campaign in Virginia, Union General Ulysses S. Grant applied constant pressure on Robert E. […]

1934

Dust storm sweeps from Great Plains across Eastern states

During the Great Depression, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.

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1947

B.F. Goodrich Co. announces development of tubeless tire

On May 11, 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announces it has developed a tubeless tire, a technological innovation that would make automobiles safer and more efficient. The culmination of more than three years of engineering, Goodrich’s tubeless tire effectively eliminated the inner tube, trapping the pressurized air within the tire walls themselves. […]

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1949

Evidence found against French serial killer known as “The Queen of Poisoners”

The body of Leon Besnard is exhumed in Loudun, France, by authorities searching for evidence of poison. For years, local residents had been suspicious of his wife Marie, as they watched nearly her entire family die untimely and mysterious deaths. Law enforcement officials finally began investigating Marie after the death of her mother earlier in […]

2:08m read

1960

High-ranking Nazi official Adolf Eichmann captured

On May 11, 1960, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question,” is captured in Argentina. On May 23, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announces to the world that he will stand trial in Israel. Eichmann was born in Solingen, Germany, in 1906. In November 1932, he […]

3:20m read

1961

President Kennedy orders more troops to South Vietnam

President John F. Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces troops. Kennedy’s orders […]

1969

Bloody 10-day battle at “Hamburger Hill” begins

On May 11, 1969, Hamburger Hill becomes the scene of an intense and controversial battle during the Vietnam War. Known to military planners as Hill 937 (a reference to its height in meters), the solitary peak is located in the dense jungles of the A Shau Valley of Vietnam, about a mile from the border […]

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1972

Labor organizer and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez begins hunger strike

On May 11, 1972, Mexican American labor organizer and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez begins a hunger strike. The strike, which he undertook in opposition to an Arizona law severely restricting farm workers’ ability to organize, lasted 24 days and drew national attention to the suffering of itinerant farm workers in the Southwest. A fervent […]

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1981

Reggae star Bob Marley dies at 36

On May 11, 1981, Bob Marley, the soul and international face of reggae music, died in a Miami, Florida, hospital. He was 36 years old. In what would prove to be the next to the last concert of his tragically short life, Bob Marley shared the bill at Madison Square Garden with the hugely popular […]

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1985

Fire kills 50 at soccer stadium

Fifty-six people die in a fire in the grandstand at a soccer stadium in Bradford, England, on May 11, 1985. The wooden roof that burned was scheduled to be replaced by a steel roof later that same week. Bradford was playing Lincoln City on the afternoon of May 11. Many fans were there to celebrate […]

1:12m read

1987

“Butcher of Lyon,” former Nazi Gestapo chief, charged with war crimes

Klaus Barbie, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied Lyon, France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity. As chief of Nazi Germany’s secret police in Lyon, Barbie sent 7,500 French Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration […]

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1997

Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess match

On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games to one, with three draws. Kasparov, a chess prodigy from Azerbaijan, was a skillful […]

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